Classic Poem

" EMPEDOCLES, who read so many books
And loved philosophy so much, did wrong
When, melancholy, he, not fearing death,
Within the depths of Etna sought his end,
And there, feet bound, was burned alive, to show
That men are weak of heart who dread to die;
Therefore he willingly embraced his fate.
No honey sweet he gained thereby, but chose
A sulphurous and boiling sepulcher.
" His case but little aids my argument;
But Origen his own testes cut off
With his own hand, that he might better serve
The nuns, and no suspicion rouse that he
Made opportunity to lie with them.
" Some say, a certain fate at certain hour
By destiny had been decreed to each
When he was first conceived — that they were born
Beneath such constellations that they must,
By sheer necessity and with no chance
Or power to avoid, accept their fate,
However grievous it might be to them.
But I know well the truth: however much
The heavens labor, and on men bestow
Their natural morals and their tendencies
To do such things as lead them to such ends,
Obeying the material force their hearts
Would fain elude, yet may they easily
By doctrine and by wholesome nouriture
Or medicines, if they are pure and fine —
By cultivating high companionship
Furnished with virtue and with common sense —
Or by superior mentality —
Succeed in leading lives quite otherwise,
If sensibly their natures they restrain.
Though men and women naturally spurn
The good, and turn to evil, Reason can
Turn them about again, if they believe
In her alone. Then things go differently;
For other outcome ever can be gained
Than that decreed by the celestial orbs,
Which doubtless have great force unless the aid
Of Reason be against them brought. But they
Are lacking power o'er her. Each wise man knows
That Reason is not subject to the stars;
For 'neath their power she was not brought to birth.
" The problem's not for lay folk to resolve
And show how man's free will can coexist
With foresight and foreknowledge heavenly
And with predestination. He who'd try
Would find the proposition much too hard
To explicate, although he might succeed
To meet objections urged against his case.
But it is true, howe'er it seems, that these
Together may accord; or else 'twere true
That by necessity all things occur.
Those who do well would never merit praise,
And those who sin would never blame deserve;
For who would do good works could never will
To do aught else, nor could he who would sin
Help sinning. Since it was predestinate,
Willing or not, he'd do it just the same.
" A man may well assert in argument
That God may never be at all deceived
In facts that He has pondered in advance,
Which doubtlessly must happen as He planned;
For He knows when and how they will take place
And to what end they tend. If it could be
That in advance God knew not, then He were
Not of unbounded might, unbounded good,
Unbounded knowledge, and full sovereignty —
The fair, the sweet, the premier of all!
He would not be aware of what we do,
But would believe as humans think of us
Who must depend on dubious surmise
Without the certainty that knowledge gives.
'Twere deviltry such error to ascribe
To God! No reasonable man would hear
Such charge preferred. Then we are led perforce
To say that when the will of man directs
Him how or when to act or speak or think
Or will or instigate, then 'tis a thing
Predestinate, which cannot be escaped.
Then it should follow that no one has free will
" But if stern destiny decrees all things
That happen, as this argument appears
To prove, and men do well or ill because
They can't do otherwise, then what reward
Or punishment do they deserve from God?
Though he had taken vows, a man could act
No otherwise. Then God could not be just
In scourging evil or rewarding good;
For on what basis could He judge a case?
He who considers well will see that then
No virtues and no vices could exist,
And, without them, no prayer or sacrifice
In chalices would any virtue have.
God would be most unfair when He mounts high
Upon the throne of justice, if He took
Of vice or virtue no account, but set
The murderers and usurers and thieves
All free, and judged to be of equal weight
The acts of hypocrites and honest men.
Then shamed were those who strive to love their God
If in the end they failed to get His love;
And fail they must, for it would come to this:
That no good works might gain them grace divine.
" However, God is not unjust, but fair,
And goodness throughout all His being shines,
Else in perfection would appear defect.
Then He must mete his gain or loss to each
According to his merit; all good works
Are recompensed, and destiny ignored,
At least so far as lay folk understand,
Who all things good or bad or false or true
Impute to it as needful happenings.
So free will does exist, however much
It is ill-treated by such sort of folk.
" Should some oppose, and deprecate free will,
Defending destiny, as many men
Have been inclined to do, and say of things
Improbable but possible, when once
They have occurred, " Had one foreseen this fact
And said, " Such thing shall come to pass, nor can
A man avoid it, " would he not have told
The truth? Then this would be necessity;
For it ensued, beyond the slightest doubt.
So interchangeability exists
Between necessity and certitude;
And when necessity compels a thing
It must, perforce, occur." By what reply
Can one escape from this predicament?
A man's foretelling may be true, and yet
It may not illustrate necessity;
For, notwithstanding his foreseeing it,
Not necessary — only possible —
Was its occurrence. If one thinks it out,
A relative necessity he finds,
Not clear necessity, as he had thought;
Not worth a wimple is that argument!
If it is true that something must occur,
Its happening is then necessity;
But although simple truth may correspond
To what I clear necessity have named,
Possible verity may not at all.
Such arguments cannot disprove free will.
" Besides, consider that 'twould please no man
To take account of any thing on earth
Or work to satisfy his needs; for why
Should he do this if all were foreordained
And fixed by force of destiny? He'd win
By counsel or by handiwork no more
Or less; because of it he'd never be
The worse or better off. And vain it were
To choose between things born and things to come —
Between things done and unattempted things —
Between words said and thinking unexpressed.
No one would learn a trade, for each would know
The art as well without his mastering it
As if he worked and studied all his life.
But this conclusion's not to be allowed.
" 'Tis clear, then, that a person should deny
That human works come from necessity.
Rather, men freely good and bad perform
Entirely as they will. To tell the truth,
There is no force outside themselves that makes
Them will to choose that which they are not free
To take or leave, if Reason they employ.
" Too great a task 'twould be for me to try
To answer all the arguments men bring
Against free will. But those who take the pains
To reason subtly tell us that divine
Foreknowledge places no necessity
Upon the acts of men. For well they say
That just because God knows what men will do
It does not follow that they're forced to act
So that they will attain to such an end;
But, since it happens that such tendency
They have toward such an end, therefore God knows.
However, too unskillfully such folk
Unsnarl the knot of all this argument;
For he who follows out their reasoning,
If their grounds are correct, must clearly see
That future facts to God His prescience give
And His foreknowledge make necessity.
Great folly 'tis to think God's wit so small
That on exterior facts He must depend.
Those who this sort of reasoning accept
Are striving evilly against their God
When they are willing to belittle Him
And His foreknowledge by such vain discourse.
Reason would teach that God can nothing learn
From man, for surely not all-wise were He
Could He be proved to suffer such default.
Then worthless is this answer, which impairs
God's foresight, and His providence conceals
Beneath the shadowing of ignorance;
For it is certain God can scarcely learn
From human works, and doubtless if He could
'Twould prove His lack of power, which were a sin
To mention and a shame even to think.
" Others think otherwise and answer thus,
According to their judgment: they agree
That when a thing's by free will done, as choice
Allows, then to what end it tends God knows,
And what will come of it; they also add
That He knows in what manner 'twill turn out
Thus they would prove there's no necessity,
But rather possibility, because
He only knows to what end they will come
If they do thus and so or do it not.
He knows that of two roads each must take one,
Shunning the second, or the other choosing,
Yet not so absolutely but that things
Might not end otherwise, conceivably,
If by free will a man should choose to act.
" How dare they say this? How dare so despise?
Such foresight only to allow to Him
As does but dubiously a thing perceive
And knows the truth but ineffectually!
They'd let Him know the effect of every deed
But never know 'twould not be otherwise;
And, if another end ensued than that
He had foreseen, as I have pointed out,
His prescience were deceived as if it judged
No better than opinion fallible.
" Others have gone about it differently,
And many accept their logic when they say
Of what occurs by possibility
That all comes by necessity on earth
As far as God's concerned, not otherwise;
For absolutely — ever without fail —
Howe'er free will may act — He knows all things
Before they happen, and what ends they'll have.
Doubtless they speak the truth; for all agree
Upon the fact that He has needful wit —
Forever free from any ignorance —
To know how everything will come about.
There's no constraint on either man or God;
His knowledge of all possibilities,
And of the sum and substance of all things,
Out from His goodness, might, and wisdom come,
Before which attributes naught can be hid.
A man would lie who said necessity
Compelled him; for, I dare assert, 'tis not
God's prescience that compels a thing to be,
Nor yet the fact that something will occur
That gives Him prescience. His omnipotence,
His goodness, His omniscience give him that;
He cannot be deceived in any thing,
Or blind to it, for He knows all the truth.
" He who would ambulate the shortest road
In trying to make clear this reasoning,
Which is quite difficult to understand,
Some simple illustration should employ
For laymen who may be illiterate;
For such folk something obvious require
Without much glossing or much subtlety.
" Suppose a man by free will undertakes
Some task, or, fearing that someone will see
And shame him for it, fails to carry through
The work in full accordance with his need,
And no one knows of it before the task
Is done — or left, if he forsake the work;
A man who afterward learns of the thing
Would place thereon neither necessity
Nor, to be sure, constraint. If he had known
Even before, if he took no offense
But merely was informed of what was done,
His information by no means deters
The other one from doing what he will
Or having done what most convenient seems;
Or, on the other hand, from stopping work
If it is his free will to leave the task.
Thus he can do or from his deed abstain.
" So God more nobly and more surely knows
The future facts and to what end they tend,
Howe'er the affair may be in the free will
Of the performer, who the power holds
Of free election, and inclines this way
Or that, led by his folly or good sense
However they are compassed and performed,
God knows the things accomplished; and He knows
The reason why some people leave their work
For shame or other cause rightly or not,
According as they're influenced by free will.
I'm very certain that there many are
Who turn from crime to which they are inclined,
And some — though few they be — abandon sin
And, for the love of God, lead virtuous lives,
Learning refinement, grace, and courtesy
Others, tempted to evil, though they think
They will no hindrance find, nevertheless
Curb their desires, fearing remorse or shame.
All this as though displayed before His eyes
God clearly sees, and all conditions knows
Of all intentions and of every deed.
Naught can be kept from Him or hid awhile;
For howsoever distant it may be
It's seen by God as if before Him placed.
Though it occurred ten, twenty, thirty — yes,
Five hundred or a thousand — years ago,
In town or country, honestly or not,
It is to Him as if it were today;
In plainest show it always has appeared
Within the everlasting mirror clear
Which none but He knows how to polish bright
Without detracting somewhat from free will.
This mirror is Himself, whence all things spring.
In this fair, shining glass, which e'er remains
Within His presence, He sees every act
That will occur as though it present were:
He sees where souls that serve Him loyally
Will go; and of the ones who have no care
For loyalty and truth He sees the fate.
According to the works that they perform,
Salvation or damnation He assigns,
Within His mind, to each. Prescience divine
This is — what we predestination call —
That knows all things and nothing needs to guess,
That knows how to extend its grace to us
When our intention to do good appears,
Yet free will's power by no means circumvents;
For right or wrong each man does by free will.
" This is man's present vision. He who'd frame
The definition of eternity
Would call it having whole and perfect life
Unending and uninterruptable.
" But this world's ordinance, which God has fixed
By His wise providence, He must maintain,
Through universal causes, to the end.
These necessarily must be such ones
As shall persist throughout all time to come.
Ever the stars their transmutation make
And by their revolutions force exert,
By necessary influence, on things
Enclosed within terrestrial elements,
As they receive the light that on them falls;
And all things that have power to give new life
Bring forth their likenesses, or hybrid forms,
By mingling of complexions natural
According as they have affinities.
He who must die will die; but he will live
Long as he can. By natural desire
The hearts of some would lie in lazy ease —
This one in virtue, that in wickedness.
" But yet perhaps not always is man's fate
Pursued according to the stars' design,
If something interferes with the events
Which always would the guiding stars obey
Were they not turned aside by chance or will.
All men are ever tempted to do that
Toward which their hearts incline, but do not reach
Inevitably the end toward which they're drawn.
So I concede that destiny may be
A disposition subpredestinate
Applied to variable human hearts
As they are found most easily inclined.
" Perhaps predestinate a man might seem,
Up from the moment of his birth, to be
Valiant and bold in all of his concerns
And wise and generous and debonair —
Renowned for attributes of gentlemen —
With friends and wealth enough — or might appear
Foredoomed to adverse fortune all his days.
Let him beware what kind of life he leads;
For all may be, by good or ill, reversed.
If he knows that he's close or miserly,
Let him bethink himself that no such man
Is truly rich, and with sufficiency
Let him content himself, and reason take
As a defense against his natural bent.
With generous heart let him bestow and spend
Money and food and clothes. But let him not
Acquire the name of foolish prodigal.
He should beware of avarice, which leads
A man to hoard his goods, and makes him live
In such a torment that he's not content
With anything; for it constricts and blinds
And lets him do no good, and makes him lose
All virtue, if he gives its promptings heed.
So may a man, if he be not a fool,
Guard against other vices which would turn
His heart from virtuous life — make him go wrong.
But free will has such potency for one
Who knows himself aright, that he his path
May always guarantee, howe'er the stars
Would have him go, if he can but perceive
Within his heart that vice would master him;
For he who could foreknow what deeds the stars
Would have him do might easily forfend.
Suppose the heavens should desiccate the air
So that all men were like to burn to death;
If they knew in advance, they'd build new homes
In marshlands or upon the riverbanks,
Or caverns excavate within the earth
Where they could hide themselves, nor fear the heat.
Or if they could foresee that some great flood
Would come in later times, the ones who knew
Some refuge could in season leave the plains
And seek the mountains, or could build great ships
In which to save themselves amidst the flood.
" That is what formerly Deucalion
And Pyrrha did, escaping in a skiff,
On which embarked they braved the waters' wrath.
When finally they safely reached a port
And saw the world stagnant in marshy plains —
And then the valleys when the waters sank —
And realized that now no lord was there
Or lady in the world, but just themselves,
Deucalion and his wife to worship went
In Themis' temple. She the goddess was
Who passed her judgment on all destinies.
Upon their knees they fell and counsel craved
From Themis, begging her to teach them how
They might renew the human lineage.
She listened to their plea, which proper was,
And told them they should cast their mother's bones
Behind them when they left the temple gates.
Pyrrha so bitter found this strange response
That to accept the counsel she refused,
And justified herself with this remark:
" No one should ever scatter or unearth
His mother's bones." But soon Deucalion
This explanation gave: " Another sense
I place upon the words; our mother's bones
Are stones, for our great mother is the earth,
And they are certainly the bones that we
Must throw behind us to restore our race."
It was no sooner said than done. Straightway
The stones Deucalion threw leapt up as men,
And women sprang from those that Pyrrha cast.
In soul and body they were all complete
As Themis promised, whispering in their ears.
Now since the race no other parents knew
Than stones, in them there always will appear
A certain hardness. Thus they wisely worked
Who in a skiff their lives saved from that flood
As anyone foreknowing might have done.
" Suppose a famine came, and all the crops
So badly failed that men were like to starve
Because of lack of grain. Foreknowing ones,
Two years, or three, or four before the time,
Might store up grain enough to overcome
The hunger of all people high and low
When finally there came a time of dearth,
As Joseph did in Egypt, with good sense
And foresight saving such a store of grain
That all might their salvation find therein
And, free from hunger and misease, survive.
" Or could men but foresee when killing cold
In winter would unreasonably appear,
They might take care to lay in store of clothes
And pile up firewood in great wagonloads
To feed their chimney fires; and they might strew
Their homes with clean, white straw from out the barn,
And close the doors and windows, and so be
Within their habitations safe and sound.
Kept warm by heated stoves, they might engage
All nude in bawdy dances if they wished;
And when they heard the windy tempests rage,
Seizing and binding every stream with ice,
And hailstones fall, killing the pastured beasts,
Though menaced, they might laugh at all the threats
Of storm and cold, and, caroling within,
From peril quite protected and set free,
So fortified, might mock the elements.
" But, unless God performed a miracle
By vision or by oracle, no man,
I am quite sure, unless astrology
Taught him to know the functions of the stars
And their diverse positions in the sky
And on what climes their greatest influence falls,
Could know future events by wit or wealth.
" If bodies are so strong as to escape
The stars' unwholesome influence, and thus
Negate their labors and protect themselves
Against them, still more powerful must be
The soul than any body, for its force
Stirs and informs with life the lifeless form
Which without it would be inanimate.
More easily and better, by the use
Of good intelligence, free will avoids
Whatever thing might bring the soul to grief;
Only what it allows may cause it woe.
'Twere well to learn by heart this fact: that man
Is for his own misease responsible;
Occasions only are exterior trials.
If man knows his estate and has regard
For his nativity, he may scorn fate.
What is this sermon worth? It says that man,
Whatever be for him predestinate,
Is over every destiny supreme.
" I might more fully destiny discuss —
Fortune and chance I might discriminate —
And willingly I would expound it all,
Refuting more as more might be opposed,
And many illustrations I might give;
But ere I finished it would prove too long.
Consult some clerk who reads and understands.
" I should be silent now, and certainly
I'd talk no more but that I must explain
More fully, lest my enemy should say,
When he hears me thus make complaint of him,
To overcome his great disloyalty
In blaming his creator, that my wish
Is wrongly to defame him. I have heard
Him say that he has no free will to choose,
For God by His prevision holds him so
In full subjection that his every thought
And deed is governed but by destiny —
That, if he wills to lead a virtuous life,
'Tis but God's doing; if to sin he turns,
It is because he is compelled by God
More firmly far than if he by the hand
Led him and made him do whate'er he does:
All sin, almsgiving, blasphemy, fair speech,
Marriage or reconcilement, right or wrong.
" " Thus must it be," says one; " God brought to birth
This woman for this man, nor may he have
Another spouse by bribe or trickery;
He destined was for her." Then, if the match
Is badly made, though one of them should be
Insane, and someone protest makes, and blames
Those who arranged and gave it their consent,
The senseless one replies: " To God we owe
This marriage; 'twas His will that things go thus;
Doubtless 'twas He who brought this all about."
He swears that things could not be otherwise.
" No, no; this explanation is a lie!
The true God would not serve folk such a sauce;
He can do nothing false, and would not make
Them give consent to such unholy banns.
'Twas from themselves the crazy thought arose
To countenance such evil and perform
Such wicked works, from which they should abstain;
And easily they could abstain from them
If they but knew themselves. Let them address
Their prayers to God. If they give Him their love,
He'll love them in return. The only way
Wisely to love is fully to know oneself.
" Dumb beasts, of reason void and destitute,
Are naturally ignorant of self;
But, if they were endowed with speech and sense
To understand each other and themselves,
It would go hard with man. Maned coursers fair
Would never let themselves be curbed with bit
Or mounted by the knights — no ox would place
His horned head beneath the plowshare yoke —
No ass or mule or camel would transport
A burden for the masters they'd despise
As hardly worth a cake — no elephant,
Who with his trunk can blow and trumpet loud
And feed himself at morning and at night
As well as can a man with his two hands,
Would bear a castle high upon his back —
No cat or dog would serve, for well enough
They could support themselves without mankind —
Bears, wolves, and lions, leopards and wild boars
Would strangle all mankind; and even rats
Would choke men in their trundle beds at night —
No bird would risk his skin at any call,
But pick men's eyes out as they lay asleep.
And if man answered with a careful scheme
To overthrow them all with armament —
With helms and hauberks, bows and arbalests,
And hardy swords — so animals might plan.
Are there no apes and monkeys who could make
Themselves good coats of mail of skin or steel,
And even doublets? Since they use their hands,
They'd hesitate at nothing, and so armed
They would not be inferior to man.
They might, indeed, the art of writing learn!
Their efforts would not be so much in vain
That all together they could not succeed
To learn the military art, and forge
Artillery that men might grievous find.
Even the fleas and earwigs might annoy
Most seriously if they could penetrate
Within man's ears as he lay fast asleep.
Bugs and nits and flesh worms oft attack
So boldly that a man must leave his work
To beat them down and drive the pests away;
He twists and dodges, jumps and skips about,
Struggles and scratches, till at last he strips
His clothes and shoes off, he is so pursued.
Even the flies that light upon man's food
And at the table oft assail his face
Great danger sometimes bring, and never care
Whether their victim be a king or page.
Ants and little vermin could become
A great annoyance if they knew their power.
From their own nature comes their ignorance.
But reasonable creatures — mortal men
And heavenly angels — all owe praise to God.
If they like fools refuse to know themselves,
The fault comes from their wickedness and vice,
Which dull their senses and intoxicate;
Whereas they easily might use free will
And follow reason. If a man does not,
There's nothing he can give as his excuse.
" It is because of this I've said so much
And brought to bear so many arguments:
That I would all their quarreling suppress
And for a refutation leave no further grounds. "